Autonomously driven vehicles, and other vehicles using sensors as part of a safety system, utilize radar, LIDAR, sonar, and other sensors mounted around the perimeter of the vehicle to sense the vehicle surroundings. Increasingly, it is desirable that the surroundings be sensed all around the perimeter of the vehicle 10, a full 360 degrees. Typically, a sensor 12 will have a predetermined spread or “cone” of sensing within which it optimally works, as seen in FIG. 1, and labeled O.C. O.C is centered about the lateral or X axis of the vehicle 10, normal to the length or Y axis. It's desirable as well to have the flexibility to place such sensors so as to get full perimeter sensing, perhaps with some overlap, but certainly with no significant gap. As seen in FIG. 1, this is relatively simple when the sides of the vehicle 10 to which the side sensors 12 are mounted form substantially right angles with the front.
With a flat fronted vehicle, the sensors 12 on the front side can be easily mounted near the front corner of the vehicle 10, potentially inside the outer skin of the vehicle 10, protected and facing in the optimal sensing direction, with the sensing cone OC essentially centered on the X or lateral axis of the vehicle 10. The central sensors 14 on the can be easily mounted centered near the front of the vehicle 10, potentially inside the outer skin of the vehicle 10, protected and facing in the optimal sensing direction, with the sensing cone OC centered on the longitudinal axis Y.
As seen in FIG. 2, the situation is not as optimal with a vehicle 10′ in which the perimeter surface 16 of the front end or grill is rounded, both for aesthetic and aerodynamic considerations, wrapping around to the sides of the vehicle 10′. This is far more typical for non-commercial passenger vehicles. Then, in order to place the front side mounted sensors 12 in an equivalent position, they must be placed on an exterior bracket 18, exposed and non-aerodynamic. This places the optimal cone OC of the sensor 12 in substantially the identical position to FIG. 1, but with the obvious drawbacks noted. If, instead, as shown in FIG. 3, the front side sensors 12 are placed interior to the rounded front perimeter surface 16, while the sensor 12 is protected and aerodynamic, its sensing cone, indicated at SC to distinguish, diverges substantially from the optimal sensing cone OC by a differential angle alpha.